USTA Men’s 4.5 League Results W/E 4/28/2013

Dave Picchi’s 4.5 men’s team is one win away from clinching the league title with a 5-0 default win over Team Yakubowski. A win over Team Bologna this weekend or a loss by Team Brown will clinch the title and a trip to Sectionals in August. Below are the scores and up[dated standings:

They certainly could play but if there is nothing n the line, why play? From what I heard, the other team had only two players available out of the 16 on the roster. This time of year, with the weather getting warmer and the season winding down, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that teams will have defaults, but to default all five courts is quite disappointing. There may be USTA LEague sanctions for this type of default that could be levied against the team.

I heard defaulting an ENTIRE match has consequenses, so thats a reason to field 2 singles players, or whatever. It does show the other team, league, that you care and are trying to put players out there, whether the team can win or lose. Their team is out of the running, so it comes down to their players wanting to play in the league for good competitve matches. If 2 of them do, they should play. Thats what the spirit of the leagues are all about.

Well, the devil’s advocate is that this area doesn’t have enough players to field 4 competitive 4.5 teams. And what you have here, just like last year, are two competitive 4.5 teams that beat up on the two weaker ones. Even in the heyday 15+ years ago when there were a lot more players, this area couldn’t field more than 2 competitive 4.5 teams. You’re right, next year at least 1 of the 4.5 teams needs to drop out.

With the recent increase in the types of leagues, such as the age split of the NTRP’s [ie. There’s now a Over 18 and Over 40 division in most NTRP levels], that’s a lot of matches to play, if you wanted to play them all. It’ll make people want to choose which leagues to play; some leagues may end up with lower numbers, even if the total number of USTA matches increases because of the additional leagues.

Only problem with pairing down to 3 teams is that you shut some players out that could and should get into the league. As long as all teams field full teams consistently, I dont mind having 4 teams with a weaker team in there. If you look at the other leagues in the area (men and women), there is some drop off from the top 2 to the bottom. That’s ok by me.